INVADERS #10 & INVADERS #11

"THE WRATH OF THE REAPER!" | "NIGHT OF THE BLUE BULLET!"
Writer/Editor: Roy Thomas | Artists: Frank Robbins & Frank Springer
Colorists: Don Warfield (#10) & George Roussos (#11) | Letterer: John Costanza

The Plot: (Issue 10) As the Invaders fly the injured Lord Falsworth and Jacqueline to London, Captain America reminisces about an adventure he and Bucky shared months ago back in the United States, against a Nazi agent called the Reaper.

(Issue 11) Soon after, the Invaders arrive at a hospital, where they turn the Falsworths over to the staff. Doctors begin to operate on both, but Jacqueline needs a special blood transfusion to survive. The Human Torch volunteers his android blood and the procedure begins. But power to the operating room goes out, leading Namor and Toro to restart the hospital's generator while Captain America and the Torch supply light for the operation to continue. Once the generator is back online and the operations finished, Cap and Bucky investigate its failure, learning that a Professor Gold is developing a special armored suit called the Blue Bullet, and his experiments cut the hospital's power.

Soon, the Blue Bullet goes on a rampage through the hospital. At Cap's order, Namor holds back against it to preserve the invention, but as a result, the Bullet plows through the Invaders. When it barges into the room where Jacqueline and the unconscious Human Torch are recuperating, Jacqueline grabs the Torch and escapes with him at lightning speed. Namor, refusing to hold back further, Attacks the Bullet at full strength and defeats it. When the Invaders open up the armor, they find not Professor Gold's surly assistant, Norris, who they expected, but rather the professor himself -- revealed as an undercover Nazi agent, inside.

In the aftermath of the conflict, Jacqueline reveals her powers to her father and declares that she wants to join the Invaders. But no sooner does she say so, than the Human Torch quits the team.

SPIDER-MAN NEWSPAPER STRIP: THE MUTANT AGENDA

DECEMBER 6TH, 1993 - MARCH 3RD, 1994
By Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, Paul Ryan, & Joe Sinnott

Surprise! We're not quite done with newspaper Spider-Man after all. As I was making my way through the run of 1980s strips we just covered, it occurred to me that there's one more fully collected Spidey story arc out there from a few years later: "The Mutant Agenda", the storyline conceived by Marvel in 1993 as sort of a "multimedia" project. Marvel published a comic mini-series by the same name, written by Steven Grant and illustrated by Scott Kolins, while the Spider-Man newspaper strip did its own version of the story by Stan Lee and Larry Lieber (with Paul Ryan and Joe Sinnott on Sundays). A year or so later, the story was also adapted into the SPIDER-MAN animated series on Fox.

As it happens, Marvel published a collection a while back of the comic series and the strips, so I figured that since it was out there, I might as well purchase the digital version and check it out. You may recall I've mentioned previously that this was my first exposure to the Spidey newspaper strip in "first run" format. Of course I had the old BEST OF SPIDER-MAN book which I've mentioned many, many times here, and I had read it to pieces when I was seven or eight years old -- but our local paper didn't carry the Spidey strip until "The Mutant Agenda" started. When that happened, I decided to follow along in the papers.

...I didn't last long. I just couldn't get into the strip. I don't know if it was reading only a few little panels per day or if it was Stan's writing or Lieber's artwork or what, but at the age of fifteen, I just couldn't get into the strip. In part, I know it was because it felt simplistic and hokey next to the then-ongoing comics -- but even if you take that out of the equation, it simply didn't seem up to par with even the material in THE BEST OF SPIDER-MAN.

SPIDER-MAN NEWSPAPER STRIP: AFTERWORD

With every volume to date of IDW's Spider-Man newspaper strip collections now in the rear-view mirror, I've read all of the strip's first decade of publication -- January 1st, 1977 - December 31st, 1986 -- and so I thought this would be a good time to sum up my thoughts on the whole thing. The verdict, in case there were any doubts, is that I really like it... for the most part. This version of Spider-Man feels more real to me somehow than most comic book versions. Not realistic, because it’s a far cry from that, but more... natural? Correct? Don’t get me wrong; I have great fondness for most of the late eighties/nineties Spider-Man comics I grew up with. I adore Roger Stern’s run too, more than I can articulate (though I tried some years ago). And I love the original 1960s-era Stan Lee/John Romita run nearly as much.

But this is different from all of those. It’s its own thing, but it feels more true to my own idea of what Spider-Man is meant to be. And I suspect part of the reason for that goes back to the formative years of my childhood, and the book I mentioned several times over the course of these reviews: THE BEST OF SPIDER-MAN, published in 1986. When I announced my first round of Spidey strip reviews in 2017, I said of that book:

"When I was a youngster -- say, maybe seven or eight years old -- I had a book called THE BEST OF SPIDER-MAN, which reprinted a handful of story arcs from the earlier years of the Spidey strip. I very nearly read the cover off that thing, to the point that it became one of the most battered, dog-eared books I owned. In a way, it was more formative of my understanding of Spider-Man than the monthly comics, since I had never really been a regular ongoing reader at that point."

And it's true. Though I was a Spider-Man fan from a very young age -- the first comic I can remember owning was AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #245 -- I dind't start reading with real regularity until the Gerry Conway run on SPECTACULAR and WEB circa 1987 or '88 -- and even then, I was only picking up random issues from spinner racks as I saw them. I didn't become an actual, honest-to-goodness montly reader of Spider-Man until somewhere around AMAZING #360 in 1992.

SPIDER-MAN NEWSPAPER STRIP PART 22

NOVEMBER 9TH, 1986 - DECEMBER 31ST, 1986
By Stan Lee, Dan Barry, & Floro Dery

After well over a year of uncredited pinch-hitters from the Marvel Bullpen handling the daily strips, Spider-Man finally gets a new regular artist as the final storyline of 1986 begins -- and he's kind of a catch, too. Beginning with the July 28th installment, daily art chores are handled by veteran newspaper strip artist Dan Barry -- best known as the artist of Flash Gordon for many years after originator Alex Raymond departed the series.

Barry's run on Spidey will turn out to be quite short, really only lasting the duration of this single arc, but it's notable nonetheless. As this is the final arc we're looking at for now, Barry is the last artist we'll see on the strip -- but following his departure, Larry Lieber will return and proceed with a remarkable run as artist from 1987 all the way through to the strip's cancellation in 2019!

As this arc begins, Peter and Mary Jane are in a good place. MJ knows Peter's identity, so he no longer needs to hide his exploits from her. They're dating, they're in love -- the only fly in the ointment is that Mary Jane still can't commit to Peter's marriage proposal. But the wall-crawler's concerns quickly turn from his love life when corrupt politician Howard Danton Hayes begins accosting Mary Jane's uncle, Judge Spencer Watson. Hayes wants Watson to go easy on a friend of his, mobster Abner Zilden. And with that setup, we're off into a storyline which provides a surprising and much-needed jolt to the recently boring newspaper strip.

SPIDER-MAN NEWSPAPER STRIP PART 21

July 20TH, 1986 - NOVEMBER 8th, 1986
By Stan Lee w/Floro Dery & Friends

Seven-month storylines seem to be the norm for the Spider-Man strep by this point. In the early days, they tended to last three or four months, and as a general rule, that carried all the way through the artistic tenures of both John Romita and Larry Lieber. But partway through Fred Kida's run (actually in the middle of his final storyline), they began to get longer. This is now our fifth five-plus-month-long arc in a row, and for the record they've gone seven months, five months, nine months, seven months -- and now seven months again.

Spider-Man's 1986 ends with Stan Lee beginning to plant the seeds for the web-slinger's marriage to Mary Jane Watson in 1987. I'm honestly a bit surprised Stan was thinking about this so far in advance, but I guess maybe he figured such a momentous event should have some build-up. So we have Aunt May worrying over Peter's lack of a wife and steady job, while MJ returns to New York with a promotion at Compton Computers -- she will now be running the company's franchise operations. Peter feels a bit inadequate in the shadow of MJ's success, and sells his motorcycle for some quick cash to take her out. He wants to propose, but when he ducks out on a New Year's Eve date to play Spider-Man, MJ declares that she doesn't want to speak with him again.

This finally prompts Peter to decide that he will reveal his identity to MJ. But first he needs to get past her cold shoulder to do it. His persistence pays off, and he eventually gets her to meet him at his apartment, where he shows her his costume and demonstrates his power, then tells her his origin. But Mary Jane is taken aback by the revelation, and tells him she needs time to think about it. So Spidey sets his mind to another task: a rash of ATM robberies in the city, which has drained Aunt May's savings. Unfortunately, a gung-ho cop is hunting him as well, seeking the glory of unmasking Spider-Man. (Which seems odd, since we're explicitly told more than once that Spider-Man isn't currently wanted for anything -- yet this guy, Detective Kovanson, pulls a gun on Spidey in the street, yelling at him to unmask for no apparent reason, twice -- and even shoots at him once as well!)

SPIDER-MAN NEWSPAPER STRIP PART 20

MARCH 18TH, 1985 - DECEMBER 21ST, 1985
By Stan Lee w/Floro Dery & Friends

Spider-Man leaps from his seven-month-long Dar Harat adventure into an unprecedented nine-month long soap opera storyline as we begin this week's installment. Peter returns from Dar Harat's island to find that the bills have piled up while he was away, and he has no cash with which to pay them. This brings to mind an odd question about the timeline, as the Dar Harat story, while running for seven months in real time, felt like it only lasted a few days in the strip's continuity. And certainly, Spidey was only out of the country on Dar Harat's island for no more than a day or two! But hey, maybe the bills were accumulating prior to Dar Harat (Spidey did spend some time suffering from amnesia and then working for the mob, after all).

Anyway, in order to earn some quick cash, Peter decides to leverage his "friendship" with Spider-Man by offering Robbie Robertson an exclusive, in-depth interview with the web-slinger to tell his life's story. In a nice (and rare) touch if inter-storyline continuity, Robbie reminds Peter that the Daily Bugle got burned once with their interview series on the Spider-Man imposter, but he's willing to give it another go. However, Jameson refuses to let Peter write the story himself (which seems reasonable to me since he's a photographer, not a writer), and assigns one J.S. Saxon, the Bugle's top feature writer, to the story.

It turns out "J.S." is actually Jenny Sue Saxon, a beautiful woman with whom Peter is instantly smitten. But Jenny has a daughter, Jody, who is terrified at the mere mention of Spider-Man. When Peter describes Jody's behavior to Aunt May, May says that the girl is exhibiting all the signs of a molested child.

SPIDER-MAN NEWSPAPER STRIP PART 19

AUGUST 12TH, 1984 - MARCH 17TH, 1985
By Stan Lee w/Floro Dery & Friends

Spider-Man's 1984 continues with another epic-length storyline -- the start of his second seven-monther in a year! This time, rather than gangsters, the villains are terrorists: a group from the Middle East called Dar Harat, led by the sinister Doctor Mondo. The U.S. government gets wind that Dar Harat is out to kidnap Spider-Man, and a government think tank called the Cerebrum Institute realizes that Mondo plans to duplicate the Web-Slinger's powers for his own agents. In order to warn Spidey, Cerebrum's top thinker, Alana Lamond, enlists the Department of Analysis and Remedial Expedients, a clandestine agency (a.k.a. DARE or "The Department", to lure him out of hiding.

The Department sends its top operative, Simon "Smitty" Smith, to help Alana. Smitty lures Spider-Man into rescuing him from a staged accident, then he and Alana explain the situation to the web-slinger. Spidey and Smitty devise a plan to let Dar Harat capture him so that they can bust the organization up from inside. But when Alana returns to Washington to report to her superiors, Peter Parker follows. He's smitten with her, and wants to meet her without his mask -- so he propses a story about the Cerebrum Institute to Jonah Jameson, and uses that as his cover to meet Alana. Alana, however, is just as uninterested in Peter as she is in Spider-Man.

(This may have something to do with the fact that both in and out of costume, Peter hits on the woman relentlessly. Like, I know I've applauded the outgoing nature of comic strip Peter before, and noted several times how comfortable he is around women, but his behavior here is beyond the pale. He obnoxiously badgers Alana nonstop with comments about her looks. It's way beyond anything similar I've ever seen Stan do, and I'm not sure what was going through his head at this point!)

SPIDER-MAN NEWSPAPER STRIP PART 18

MARCH 22ND, 1984 - AUGUST 11TH, 1984
By Stan Lee & Fred Kida w/Floro Dery & Friends

Our next storyline is the final one that was collected in that old BEST OF SPIDER-MAN book I've mentioned here so many times. It was also the most then-recent arc in the book. Most of the strips therein were from the Lee/Romita heydey, with only the Muffy Ainsworth story and this one from the post-Romita period. And this storyline, from 1984, was only two years old when the book saw print. However, its presentation in that volume was unique. All the other story arcs in the book were printed in black-and-white -- even the Sunday pages. But this one was printed in a special color section, which included only the Sunday strips, with brief summaries of the dailies that ran in between. So while I have sort of read this one before, I've never read it in its entirety.

The arc, which the old book titled "The Imposter Must Die!", picks up a thread from our previous storyline. I didn't mention it last week because it was incidental to the plot, but throughout the Eliminator/Braxton story, there was a sub-plot about the Daily Bugle running a "Who is Spider-Man" contest, with a grand prize of $50,000 for the person who could prove the Wall-Crawler's secret identity. That plot now takes center stage in this arc. And by the way, I think this is the first time I can remember the strip doing something like this. Aside from the more "window-dressing" type stuff, like whether or not Peter and Mary Jane are an item at any given time, the strip has rarely, if ever, carried continuity through its story arcs in this fashion. Usually every arc is a "done in one" deal, with most plot threads resolved in time for the next story to begin. So kudos to Stan and/or his ghost plotter (more on that in a few weeks) for going a bit more sophisticated with his writing at this point.

SPIDER-MAN NEWSPAPER STRIP PART 17

AUGUST 1ST, 1983 - MARCH 21ST, 1984
By Stan Lee & Fred Kida w/Floro Dery

At the end of the previous storyline, Mary Jane tried to give Spider-Man a kiss for saving her life, but he bolted, worried she would realize he was actually Peter Parker. Knowing Stan Lee, I doubt he remembered that he had already trod this ground before, a year or so earlier, and that MJ did briefly wonder after a kiss with the Web-Slinger if he might be her boyfriend. But in any case, it does make for a nice callback. But the problem for Peter is, he's tired of hiding his secret from everyone, which means -- yes, it's time for another installment of the classic "Peter wrestles with the burden of his secret identity" story. (In fact, we were probably overdue for one at this point.)

This leads us into the next storyline, and it's a doozy, running seven months long! It begins with Peter deciding that rather than giving up his identity or going bad or whatever else, he's simply going to announce to the world that he's Spider-Man, so he won't have to keep juggling his personal life and his costumed one. But first, he wants to propose to MJ. Indeed, his main reason for planning this revelation seems to be so he can be with her and not have his secret between them, but at no point does he consider that maybe he could just tell her and no one else!

But Peter gets cold feet the first time he intends to reveal himself and propose. This delay allows time for an assassin called the Eliminator to arrive in town, on a mission to kill Jonah Jameson at the request of crime boss "Big John" Braxton. Meanwhile, Peter buys a motorcyle with which he intends to impress MJ. Then, on a rainy night, Peter and the Eliminator are involved in a crash. Peter is stricken with amnesia, finds the Eliminator's wallet and staggers away, now believing that he is the Eliminator. He finds his way to Braxton, where he learns his "profession" and his mission to kill Jameson. Eventually he winds up in his apartment, where he argues with Mary Jane, and then heads to the Daily Bugle to fulfill his contract.

SPIDER-MAN NEWSPAPER STRIP PART 16

DECEMBER 27TH, 1982 - APRIL 16TH, 1983
APRIL 17th, 1983 - JULY 31ST, 1983
By Stan Lee & Fred Kida w/Floro Dery

Spider-Man's first storyline of 1982 marks something of a milestone for the strip, as it acknowledges for the first time that there are other super-characters out in the world besides Spider-Man and some of his enemies (save perhaps the Hulk, who has been mentioned in passing once or twice, but it's hard to tell in context whether that's as an existing creature or a fictional character). This arc sees Peter dispatched aboard a sketchy ship called the Missing Link with a Daily Bugle reporter named Harry McNeil and a beautiful oceanographer named Sam Taylor to investigate the disappearances of several ships in the Bermuda Triangle -- but there, they run into Namor the Sub-Mariner, and help him to battle his enemy, the renegade Atlantean, Krang.

Suprisingly, Peter never once changes into Spider-Man during the duration of this three-and-a-half month-long storyline. He never has much of an opportunity, for one thing -- he and Sam go down in a bathysphere together, which leads to an attack by Krang, then Namor shows up and they bring him back to the surface after Krang beats him. Namor then captains the boat to a nearby island, where the group is cornered in a cave and then fights Krang until he is defeated. There are a few moments where Peter is separated from the group, but he never changes for fear of blowing his secret identity -- which eventually results in him using his spider-powers and web-shooters during the final fight to aid Namor, without his costume. Though Harry is unconscious during this battle, Sam sees -- and after she and Peter are returned to New York by Namor, she tells Peter that she knows his secret and needs to get away for a while to clear her head.

Even though Sam spends much of the arc crushing on Namor, she and Peter appear quite close by its conclusion. Hopefully we haven't seen the last of her, because she's a charaacter who I really like, and different from the normal sorts Stan pairs Peter with in these strips. She's a bit more assertive and independent than Spidey's usual damsels in distress and/or connivers (notwithstanding the fact that she swoons over Namor from the moment she meets him).

SPIDER-MAN NEWSPAPER STRIP PART 15

MARCH 22ND, 1982 - JUNE 12TH, 1982
JUNE 13TH, 1982 - SEPTEMBER 19TH, 1982
SEPTEMBER 20TH, 1982 - DECEMBER 26TH, 1982
By Stan Lee & Fred Kida

Following an okay, but somewhat silly Doctor Doom plot, the Spider-Man strip returns to the sort of story it does best with this next arc. Back in New York following his excursion to Laveria, Peter finds that Spider-Man is still a celebrity —- and that a fashion company is cashing in on his likeness by manufacturing “Spidey Jeans”!

The jeans are a smashing success. Everyone is wearing them (even Harry Osborn in a one-panel cameo). Naturally, poor Spidey wants his cut of the profits. He goes to Howard Huffman, the civil rights lawyer who defended him during the “humanoid” arc (and who Peter Parker consulted for advice during the assassin storyline). Huffman takes Spidey’s case and begins building a suit against the owners of Spidey Jeans, Melissa and Phillip Trent. (Melissa is, in keeping with the strip’s long tradition, a total fox, while Phillip is a distinguished gentleman confined to a wheelchair.)

But since the Wall-Crawler has never copyrighted his name or likeness, he’s in the public domain and his case has no legs. Determined to profit somehow off Spidey Jeans, however, he agrees to ride shotgun with the company’s delivery trucks, which have recently been hijacked a few times.

SPIDER-MAN NEWSPAPER STRIP PART 14

OCTOBER 5TH, 1981 - DECEMBER 6TH, 1981
DECEMBER 7TH, 1981, 1981 - MARCH 21ST, 1982
By Stan Lee & Fred Kida (w/Larry Lieber)

Stan Lee and Fred Kida continue the adventures of a more "grounded" Spider-Man in the first of this week's storylines, which quite honestly could've been ripped from today's headlines! It's about a shady oil tycoon who decides he wants to be president -- and he wants Jonah Jameson to be his Secretary of Information in exchange for the Daily Bugle's endorsement. Robbie is of course against this, but Jonah has stars in his eyes and goes along with the billionaire, Thurston Thurwell.

Meanwhile, Spider-Man has become a celebrity following the previous adventure, in which he thwarted the assassination of a visiting cosmonaut. Mary Jane is smitten with the Web-Slinger, but still won't give Peter the time of day since he skipped out on her play to stop the assassin. So, to get back into MJ's graces, Peter offers to get her a poster of Spidey autographed by the Web-Slinger himself -- and to have Spider-Man deliver it. Spidey eventually does, but he ducks out in a hurry to do some crime-fighting, and MJ immediately decides that he's a flake.

At the same time, a group of young vigilantes calling themselves the Spider-Brigade have become the toast of the town. (I think they're more like a neighborhood watch than actual vigilantes, but vigilantes is the way they're described in narration and dialogue.) Thurwell can't stand this, as he believes the young men are taking the law into their own hands, and forces Jameson to condemn them in the Bugle. At the same time, Thurwell also anonymously offers $50,000 to anyone who can scale the side of the Bugle building like Spider-Man, certain that whoever tries will fail and be killed, thus turning public opinion against the Wall-Crawler.

SPIDER-MAN NEWSPAPER STRIP PART 13

MAY 26TH, 1981 - AUGUST 8TH, 1981
AUGUST 9TH, 1981 - OCTOBER 4TH, 1981
By Stan Lee & Larry Lieber

Stan Lee and Larry Lieber continue the "primetime TV" approach to Spider-Man that I love so much in both of this week's storylines. First, at a college dance, Mary Jane is harassed by a new student named Vince Rigby. Peter stands up for her, but a chandelier falls, nearly killing him and breaking his arm. It turns out that Rigby has telekinetic powers, and uses them for his own selfish purposes. But when he shows off for MJ, she tells Peter about Rigby's ability, which prompts Peter to inform Robbie and Jonah, which leads to Rigby going public and accepting a bounty from Jameson: if Rigby can best Spider-Man in battle, JJJ will pay him ten grand.

Fortunately, Peter's quick-healing abilities have his arm back to normal around this point, and he goes out to meet Rigby's challenge. Everything comes to a head at -- wait for it -- a roller rink, where MJ is on a date with Rigby, and where Jameson happens to be showing the niece of his biggest advertiser a good time, when Spider-Man shows up. Rigby goes berserk, ranting about how he will kill Spider-Man, but the web-slinger tricks him into overtaxing his power, so that when he finally attempts to move something relatively small (which Spidey secretly webbed to the floor), he's unable to. After this, Rigby's power shuts down, an outcome Spider-Man compares with blowing a fuse.

SPIDER-MAN NEWSPAPER STRIP PART 12

JANUARY 12TH, 1981 - MARCH 14TH, 1981
MARCH 15TH, 1981 - MAY 25TH, 1981
By Stan Lee & Larry Lieber

Our return to the Spider-Man newspaper strip coincides with the return of Doctor Octopus as well. Ock was last seen in early 1977 (the strip's second storyline, in fact), which means it's four years at this point since we last saw him! Contrast that with the Kingpin, who made multiple appearances over the previous few years, and Kraven and Doctor Doom, who each popped up twice, and it seems odd. Doc Ock was, at this time, generally accepted as Spider-Man's "main" villain, so the fact that he was used so sparingly is a bit of a surprise.

Strangely, this strip seems to be ignoring that previous appearance. Here, Ock is released from prison on parole and decides that, even though he has "a fortune" socked away, he should lay low and live as a common man -- so he goes in search of a room for rent. Meanwhile, Aunt May has been recently robbed and has decided she shouldn't live alone, so she's placed an ad for a boarder. Naturally, Ock shows up and there's much discussion about the last time they encountered each other, right?

Nope. Ock does, of course, answer the ad, but it's presented like the first time he and May have met (and the first time he's met Peter, as well). This seems to be a sort of "soft reboot" of the strip's continuity. You may recall that in its earliest story arcs, the strip presented Spider-Man and his villains as if they had some sort of prior history. First Doctor Doom, then Doc Ock, then the Kingpin -- all were shown as having tangled with the web-slinger in the past (or at least having known about him), and in Ock's case, his past as Aunt May's beau was acknowledged as well.

SPIDER-MAN: THE FURTHER NEWSPAPER STRIPS

Nearly three years ago, I read and posted about the first four years of the syndicated Spider-Man newspaper strip by Stan Lee and John Romita, by way of IDW's Library of American Comics reprints. Well, I finished up that run and even though I had another volume on my bookshelf, I decided -- at least for the time -- to call it quits with the newspaper version of the Web-Slinger.

Since then, I've picked up the next couple volumes in IDW's series, bringing us to a total of five books -- and I've decided that now is the time to crack them open and continue with Spidey's funny-page adventures. I'm going to run through all three of these books, which will take us from January of 1981 through 1986, and feature Lee working with his brother, Larry Lieber, plus newspaper strip veteran Fred Kida, as well as TRANSFORMERS TV series character designer Floro Dery, on art.

Unlike the first run of strips we looked at, where I was familiar with some of the storylines from a book I had as a child, this material will be nearly entirely new to me -- I believe only one full storyline from this era was presented in THE BEST OF SPIDER-MAN, along with one storyline that had only its Sunday strips collected. So I look forward to seeing where Lee took Spider-Man's adventures following Romita's departure.

Incidentally, I remember that our local paper picked up the Spider-Man strip somewhere around 1991 or so, and -- I'll be blunt -- I found it pretty lame, compared with the comics of the time, in terms of both story and art. But those are the memories of a teenager reacting to material that was published a decade after the stuff we're about to read. I don't know if my thoughts on the strip in the early nineties was right or wrong, but at least as late as his final few story arcs with John Romita, Stan was still his usual entertaining self (even if some of the plots were a little iffy).

I guess we'll find out soon exactly what to make of these stories, as I intend to spend the next several weeks on them. How many weeks? I'm not exactly sure. On my first go-round, I looked at two story arcs per week, and the two books took eleven weeks to cover. Now we're looking at three books, so going at the same rate, this could very well take us more than four months.

It all begins Monday, Web-heads -- be there!

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE 1940S NEWSPAPER STRIP

(PLUS BONUS SPIDER-MAN!)

Writer & Artist: Karl Kesel
Colorist: Ben Dimagmaliw | Letters: Jared K. Fletcher
Assistant Editor: Rachel Pinnelas | Associate Editor: Lauren Sankovitch
Editor: Bill Rosemann | Executive Editor: Tom Brevoort
Digital Production Manager: Tom Smith 3 | Digital Coordinator: Harry Go

If there was ever a perfect way to do a webcomic for a superhero, this has to be it. Over the years, going all the way back to their earliest days on America Online, Marvel has engaged in periodic webcomics, but -- to the best of my recollection -- they have most all been done in a regular comic book format, or with silly animated effects. But, someplace in between all that, Karl Kesel found a formula that worked astoundingly well, to the point I don't know why all superhero webcomics aren't done this way! Somewhere around 2009/2010, Kesel wrote and drew a serialized comic strip starring Captain America, which was posted daily at Marvel.com -- and the results are stupendous.

It helps that Kesel has a love for the genre -- he says as much in his afterword to the collected strips, but he needn't have done so. His enthusiasm is fully evident in every daily installment. As readers of this blog know, I've developed quite an interest in newspaper adventure strips myself over the past few years, and for the most part Kesel produces a masterful pastiche of same.

The story, presented as an "arc" in a ongoing strip, sees Captain America and Bucky brought to a top-secret facility where the government is pursuing various means in search of a new type of super soldier. Cap is subjected to a battery of tests, but things go off-track when it appears the Red Skull has infiltrated the base. The FBI's Red Skull expert is called in to investigate, and Cap and Bucky find themselves joining in to get to the bottom of a series of disappearances and apparent acts of sabotage.

STAN LEE

So the news came out this past Monday that Stan Lee had passed away. I remarked to my wife that day that I felt as if I'd lost another grandparent -- which is in no way meant to diminish my grandparents, who I loved dearly, but is simply meant to illustrate the extent of Stan's presence in my life. I mean, I only met the guy one time (though I was in the same room as him a few more times after that) -- but during my childhood, as was the case for countless others besides me, Stan Lee was Marvel.

I'm not here to discuss the rightness or wrongness of that, by the way. Debates about creator credit and "who did what" will rage for as long as there's any sort of historical interest in sequential art. But regardless of the truth or fiction behind the whole situation, the unchangeable fact is that Stan Lee represented the public face of Marvel for more than one generation.

SPIDER-MAN NEWSPAPER STRIP PART 11

SEPTEMBER 1st, 1980 – NOVEMBER 1st, 1980
NOVEMBER 2nd, 1980 – JANUARY 11th, 1981
By Stan Lee & John Romita

Morose over breaking up with Carole, Peter pays a visit to Aunt May but finds her living in terror over a mystery man called “the Protector”. May explains that this guy has been shaking down the elderly in her neighborhood, demanding protection money in exchange for not roughing them up. Eager for something to take his mind off Carole, Peter sends May to stay with Anna Watson and awaits the Protector’s impending arrival.

Side note: Recall that briefly when the strip started in 1977, Aunt May and Anna were roommates as they had been during the Lee/Romita comic book run a decade earlier. Then, quickly, it was established that no, May lived by herself (albeit in an apartment rather than a house, which is still the case here), but it seemed as if Anna was her neighbor. But now, it looks like Anna lives someplace else entirely, away from the neighborhood and out of the Protector’s reach! She sure moves a lot.

Anyway, the Protector does show up, and surely this is one of John Romita’s finest character designs. He’s just a big bruiser with curly hair, a cowboy hat, an open vest with no shirt underneath, and a bullwhip. And wouldn’t you know it, just as he’s about to come to blows with Peter, Mary Jane arrives and starts flirting with him!

SPIDER-MAN NEWSPAPER STRIP PART 10

MAY 25th, 1980 – AUGUST 31st, 1980
By Stan Lee & John Romita

It’s bizarre, but somehow Stan Lee and John Romita seem to have decided that Mary Jane and Carole just can’t coexist simultaneously in the ongoing SPIDER-MAN newspaper saga. Carole only developed into Peter’s girlfriend while MJ was out of the picture with Kraven. When MJ returned to town, it coincided with Carole leaving to hide out from the Loomis Cult. Carole eventually returned to New York and she and Mary Jane shared maybe a week’s worth of time as supporting characters before MJ just sort of dropped off the map as Peter picked things up with Carole again.

On one hand, I understand that Carole has been positioned at this point as Peter’s main squeeze, but it’s just bizarre to write Mary Jane out (or simply ignore her) whenever Carole’s around. It’s not like there’s precedent for this. Back during their legendary run on THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, Lee and Romita had Mary Jane and Gwen Stacy both vie for Peter’s affections, and once Peter settled (fairly quickly) on Gwen, MJ stuck around as a member of the gang. They didn’t just send her off into limbo when Peter and Gwen got serious.

Though I suppose this speaks to one glaring problem with the newspaper incarnation of Spider-Man: there really isn’t a “gang”, at least not in the same way there was in the comics. Sure, Mary Jane is around somewhere. So are Harry and Flash. But for the most part, none of them put in appearances unless the current story arc calls for it. MJ was the catalyst that got the Rattler storyline going way back when. Harry and Flash only pop up when their disco is needed as the backdrop for the ongoing drama. It’s not like the old days, where Lee and Romita would check in on everybody once an issue or so just to remind readers they existed, whether or not they had any ongoing sub-plot of note.

This is probably due to the nature of a newspaper strip versus a monthly comic — in a daily strip, there’s not a lot of time to toss in cameo appearances that don’t further the plot, while a 22(ish)-page comic book does have that luxury.

SPIDER-MAN NEWSPAPER STRIP PART 9

DECEMBER 24th, 1979 – FEBRUARY 24th, 1980
FEBRUARY 25th, 1980 – MAY 24th, 1980
By Stan Lee & John Romita

Christmas of 1979 finds Peter Parker, as usual, with barely two nickels to rub together in a story arc the BEST OF SPIDER-MAN book called “Requiem for a Super Hero”. Embarrassed that all he can afford for Aunt May and Mary Jane are handkerchiefs, and sobered by Aunt May’s accumulating bills, Peter decides to cast off his costume, retire Spider-Man, and become Peter Parker full time.

But as usual, things don’t work out as planned for our hero. He goes looking for a job, but runs into the age old “experience required” trap. Peter discovers what I learned when I finished college many years ago: you can’t get a job without experience, and you can’t get experience without a job. He also tries out for the ESU football team, but gets the boot. However, at the very least, Peter’s relationship with Mary Jane is looking up, as the specter of Spider-Man no longer pulls him away from her every night — but soon, as Spidey’s enthusiasm dies down and stops bleeding into Peter’s personal life, our hero becomes brooding and dull, pushing MJ away.

Further, Peter bumps into a few situations where he has no choice but to act heroically even without his costume. In the first, he saves a young child on the verge of falling from an under-construction building, then later, after Aunt May is kidnapped by a group of bank robbers, Peter pursues them and secretly uses his powers to save her.

But in the end, it’s learning that a child saved another child from drowning because he knew Spider-Man would have done the same thing that convinces Peter to don the webs once more.